


Long Live the Queen

by lembaslicious



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Battle of Five Armies, everyone is dead but Dís is queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2580767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lembaslicious/pseuds/lembaslicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dwalin gives her the rune stone, Dís knows.<br/>But it isn't the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Live the Queen

> _**The Queen beneath the mountains,** _  
> _**The Queen of carven stone,** _  
> _**The lady of silver fountains** _  
> _**Shall come into her own!** _

Dís is in the smithy when the riders come. She perches on a stool by the work bench, hunched over a silver clasp smaller than her thumbnail; her hands steady as she covers the clasp in gold thread, creating a pattern of angles and lines as perfectly shaped as those of its sisters. Five clasps in all, they will be attached to a silver chain and adorned with silver beads, to be braided into lady Jorunn’s beard whe she weds. It is the greatest work Dís has ever made.

But then she’s always at her best when she is alone, when she can work until the small hours or stay in the smithy until dawn breaks, when she can have dinner brought to her without bothering about decent break times or wondering when and how the boys will get themselves in trouble, when Thorin doesn’t sit brooding in a corner on one of his grumpy days or come ambling inside at every odd moment to watch her work on better days - and she’s at her best when she can let the fine threads of silver and gold demand her full attention, when she wants to keep her mind from wandering. She’s been spending most of this dreary winter in the smithy. The warmth is not what keeps her there.

She hears the horn blowing in the valley and would have gone still if her task had allowed it. Her heart quickens. Perhaps it is a company if merchants returning from the market in Bree. Perhaps it is one of the hunting parties announcing a succesful hunt. But the horn blows again and again, and she can hear the ponies clatter to a standstill outside the gates, feet trampling, voices rising and falling. People are calling for her. She wants to look but cannot put her work aside at that moment. _Patience_ , she tells herself. _You are a mother; you know patience._

She senses someone in the doorway. She has to focus all her will on keeping her hands steady.

”Any news?” she asks.

”Dís”, Dwalin says, and she drops her tools and the silver clasp and turns, a smile appearing and fading on her lips just like a candle flame flares up only to be quenched by a gust of wind. Dwalin isn’t smiling. There are streaks of grey in his beard that were not there when he left. She searches his face for hope and finds none.

”Tell me.”

He steps forward, taking her slender artisan’s hands, mapped with burns and scars, into his own. He places something smooth and cool in her palm. She doesn’t need to look. Her fingers knows it by heart, the smooth surface she spent so many hours polishing, the inscription she made with such care as if his life depended on the eveness of the runes. The moment she holds it in her hands, her chest is filled with a burden heavier than the whole world. Not him. Mahal, not him.

_Return to me._

It can’t be.

”And… Fili?”

Dwalin shakes his head. She can see him choking on his grief and he turns away, his lips forming another word. Dís takes a step back.

”Thorin as well?”

”It’s only us now, lass”, Dwalin says, and Dís can tell that he has been planning to say that to comfort her, but the words fall like dead weights between them. She has never seen Dwalin weep and never wanted to. She takes another step back, the rune stone digging into her palm; if she could, she would break it.

_I have lost my sons. I am a mother who has lost her sons._

But it cannot be true. She would have known. Aren’t mothers supposed to know when their children die? Wouldn’t her heart have felt it when theirs stopped beating? But Dwalin does not lie. The rune stone is cold in her hand. _I am a mother who has lost her sons._ She knows many mothers who have lost their children: to war, to fire, to famine, to cold. There were many after Erebor was lost, and even more after the battle of Khazad-dûm, and to her they were all the same, first hysterical, then cold, never truly alive again. She never expected to be one of them.

_I am a mother who has lost her sons._

”Dís?” Dwalin says, his voice rough. ”Come, sit down. You look faint.”

She does so, but only because he asks. He pulls out another stool from under the work bench and sits down in front of her, too large for her little smithy, and he looks so weak and frail that for a moment she cannot believe he is the same Dwalin that left that summer. He has aged a hundred years on the road back.

He tells her the story chopped up in small pieces as though they have no relation to each other, and at first she doesn’t understand at all; she has to ask him to repeat, to elaborate, and though she knows it pains him she doesn’t let him leave any details out. Thorin never meant to start a war, Dís. He was so confused. After the hobbit betrayed him he refused to speak to anyone for days. He wanted so badly to do good but he forgot because no one would trust him. Wouldn’t you have been bitter too? Thorin never meant to start a war, Dís. He was so confused.

”My sons”, she says. ”What about my sons?”

He takes her hand in his again. ”They were brave, lass. So brave. And foolish - but not as foolish as when they left. They matured. You would have been proud of them. They were no longer children when they… when they…”

”Yes they were”, she whispers. ”They were my children.”

What matters bravery when they are dead? If only they could have been cowards and stayed with her where they were safe. _I am a mother who has lost her sons._ And a sister who has lost her brothers. And a daughter who had lost her parents. What is there left?

”Dís?” Dwalin says. ”They did not die in vain. The dragon is dead - Erebor is ours now, but it stands without an heir. Unless you return with me.”

”For what?” she asks, her voice flat. ”There is nothing there for me but their graves. What would I return for?”

”Your home, Dís”, Dwalin says. ”What they fought for. What they died for. Will you not come home with me?”

She looks away, her eyes falling on the now ruined silver clasp on the work bench. This smithy is her life work, the only home she has ever had. It was one of the first things she decided when her people broke up from Dunland and wandered west: that if they ever found a place to stay, she would not live on the hard-won wealth of her brother or husband, a princess without a kingdom, a lady in nothing but the name. She would be her own. And Thorin agreed and said that it did fit a lady to work silver (because he did not understand, not that; to him she was never a princess without a kingdom, because the kingdom was there, only he hadn’t reclaimed it yet) and he helped set up her shop, and refused to hear she did not want to owe it to him.

But Erebor? She hardly remembers Erebor. She has vague memories of it, the great halls and deep tunnels, the people and the markets, a room of her own, her grandfather’s throne - but she was so young when she left. It was always Thorin who told her sons stories about Erebor. It was Thorin who gave them the idea that retaking it was the only way, that it was fate. If he hadn’t they would have been alive. She hates Erebor almost as much as she hates Thorin.

Dwalin follows her gaze. Quietly he picks the silver clasp up - it is so small it looks like he would break it between his fingers, but he is so gentle there is never any danger.

”This is beautiful work.” He takes her hand and places the clasp in her palm, and it lays there glinting a little, too fragile for her calloused skin. ”Fit for a queen.”

”Oh Dwalin”, she whispers, and now she’s trembling, sobbing, and he’s pulling her close, rocking her in her arms like the first time Thorin went off to war and no one could convince her to let him go, no one but Dwalin, who held her tight and told her he’d protect her brother at all costs, because he was Dwalin’s brother too, and didn’t she know he was a great warrior? And just like then, when she pulls back, she wipes her tears away and nods.

”Yes”, she says, ”I will come home. I will come home with you.”

> **_Her crown shall be upholden,_ **  
> **_Her harp shall be restrung,_ **  
> **_Her halls shall echo golden_ **  
> **_To songs of yore re-sung._ **

They leave as soon as the weather allows. Though at first many are reluctant to leave the place that has become their home, the mountain where they slowly built new lives and new wealth and even new pride, in the end not one of them choose to stay behind. Dís knows not if they follow her or the memory of her brother, but it doesn’t matter to her. She never asked for a crown. All she asked was for her sons to be safe.

Though it was many years since last time, packing what they need and loading it on carts and mules is still a familiar task, rooted deep in their memories. Only the young doesn’t remember what it is to break up from a place and move on to the next. Their departure, an hour after dawn when the spring air is still cold and the sunlight crisp, is quiet. Dís is at the head, and Dwalin beside her. An entire cart was prepared for the queen-to-be, but in the end all she brings is the leather case with her most valuable tools and a chest of clothes. All else she leaves behind. Though saying goodbye to her smithy is painful, she is also relieved to close the door for the last time, the leather case heavy in her arms. _This is not the end_ , she tells herself. _The end came when your sons left. This is the beginning._

She is a mother who has lost her sons, but she is still herself.

Summer comes as the make their slow and steady way east. At times they follow the same path her brother and her sons took before them, and Dwalin sometimes points at things along the road - here we camped once - this was where the pony bolted into the river. Once he pulls her away from the road to show her the three trolls-turned-stone sitting in a circle around an overgrown fire-place. And she smiles when he smiles, and mourns when he is not looking, and tears will come at the oddest of moments, in the middle of a laugh, when she wakes at night; she never runs out of them. But though it will never be gone, the pain is different by the time they have crossed the mountains, the wound no longer so raw. There are times when her smile is real. And there are times when she thinks she can finally feel what Thorin felt: that she is on the way home.

The way around the southern edge of Mirkwood is long and dreary, but they do their best to keep their spirits up. Each night Dís walks from fire to fire to lend words of comfort, words she is slowly starting to believe, and the dwarves - her people - take heart, more so than she would have dared to hope. She is no longer lady Dís sister of Thorin, but lady Dís their queen-to-be.

"All will be well", she tells them. "All will be well."

The bells ring in Dale when they draw near it. More than the sight of the River Running glittering and the smells or reed and summer grasses, it is a sound she remembers, and she remembers it with fear: the bells rang when the dragon came, deep and dark and mournful, as if they already knew that all was lost. But the sky is clear and no fire comes from it, and Dwalin takes her hand when she hesitates and holds it tight.

”All will be well, lass”, he says. ”All will be well.”

And Dís holds her head high as they come over the ridge and see Dale beneath them, and beyond it, Erebor.

She was ten last time she beheld this sight. She realizes now just how much the memory has faded - how much bigger it seemed then, and how the years has changed details and blurred outlines and left a feeling, more than an image, of what she left behind. But the gates are as splendid as she knew they were once, as Thorin always described them. And when she thinks of him, she can see him standing here, can even see his smile, that weary and maddened smile that should have told her he would never be whole enough to live; and she can see her sons, standing beside him, proud and awed - though did they ever have a chance to do that?

_Was it like you imagined it, Kíli? Was it as great and splendid as you thought? Thorin made it sound bigger, did he not, as if it was the centre of the world.  
_

”Is it like you remembered it?” Dwalin asks.

”-yes. It is.”

_It should have been yours, Fíli. After Thorin it should have been yours to rule. I do not think you ever realised it, but you would have been the greatest king Erebor had ever seen.  
_

”I think Dain’s coming out to meet us.”

_And you, Thorin? I suppose you expected that once you stood here again, all would be clear to you; once you stood here you would know what to do. Did you ever?  
_

_Did you ever regret it? When the battle raged around you and you knew you would die and my sons with you, were you sorry?_

"Dís."

The tears burn in her eyes again and she blinks. She knows she has stood there for too long, that Dáin is waiting down in the valley and her people expecting her to move on, but it is all too much. She is nearly breaking.

_Why did you do it, Thorin? You were my brother. Why did you take my sons?_

But she cannot break now. She is stronger than he was. If her mother could make it through the loss of her husband and her youngest son, if her grandmother could through the loss of her kingdom and her crown, then Dís will be no weaker.

A brisk wind lifts her hair as they descend into the snaking valley. The dwarves come out the gates to greet them - Dain with his broad shoulders and his old fur cloak, Balin (how old he looks, how tired) and many others, some new to her, others old friends. As they approach, Dwalin falls in behind her, and there’s a shout - the Queen is come! The Queen of the Mountain! For the first time, her heart lifts. She never asked to be a queen, but after all that she has lost she deserves nothing less.

She reaches level ground. The dwarves part to let her through, falling to their knees when she passes them. When the Gates tower above her she stares them down, and when the memories come - of heat stinging her eyes and smoke burning her throat, of flames roaring and stone breaking, of the thunder of great wings and the bells tolling in Dale, of her mother screaming her name as people rushed past, separating them, pushing and shoving, nearly toppling her - when the memories come, Dís raises her chin. She was just a girl then, but she’s a woman now.

In front of Dain she stops. Though he has ruled the Iron Hills for many years he bows to her, a king to a queen, and when he moves to help her down she swings her leg over the pony’s back and jumps gingerly to the ground on her own. The five silver clasps in her beard clink against each other with the movement. When she gave it to lady Jorunn, the young maid shook her head. _You are the only one worthy of it, my Queen_.

”Please”, she says. ”Rise.”

Dain straightens. He’s holding something out to her: a circlet of silver and ruby, two ravens in flight surrounded by elaborate knots - but it is not the bulky helmet-crown of her grandfather.

”This was by grandmother’s.”

”Aye, Your Grace”, Dain says. ”She always said the dragon had it, didn’t she? Well, she was right.”

Dís takes it without a word. It is heavy; the weight makes her strong. This is her prize, after all her sorrows: a crown. The metal is cold against her brow.

When she turns around she finds the dwarves still on their knees, and those that arrived with her bowing from the backs of their ponies. Dís gazes at them, her eyes as calm as the sea the morning after a storm. Then she bows to them. Perhaps she has cause to be proud, but so have they. She will be a good queen, a humble queen. Her pride will not her her downfall.

Rising again, she turns to Dain.

”My sons”, she says. ”Take me to my sons.”

> **_The woods shall wave on mountains_ **  
> **_And grass beneath the sun;_ **  
> **_Her wealth shall flow in fountains_ **  
> **_And the rivers golden run._ **

He leads her deep into the mountain, to where she can hear it breathe under the soles of her feet. There are the empty vaults that were prepared for her parents and her grandparents, hollow chambers guarded over by the statues of those that were meant to rest there. And there is the vault that was prepared for Thorin. His tomb stands on a raised platform, and below it the tomb that was made for the wife he never took has been replaced with two others. Dís is tempted to stop at the foot of the stair; she doesn’t. She it tempted to stop in the doorway; her feet lead her on. She walks on until she stands between the two lower tombs and can put her hands on the place where her sons’ hearts are no longer beating. She sinks to her knees. They are not here. Cannot be.

”Dís…”

”Leave me”, she says.

Reluctantly Dain walks away, leaving a torch to throw a faint light over what’s left of her family. Dís bows her head all the way to the floor until her forehead meets the cold stone, the crown digging into her brow. _I am a mother who has lost her sons. I am a mother who has lost her sons._

Trembling she fumbles inside her coat and pulls a leather pouch up by its string. Her hands shiver when she opens it. The runestone is cold and smooth in her palm. _Return to me._ Was she a fool to think that would protect him?

”Oh Kíli….”, she whispers, lifting her head to gaze at his tomb, and she wonders how it can be that he is there under the stone lid, how it can truly be her son’s body laying there. ”So many times I regretted that I did not come with you. I should have been here to protect you. I should never have let you go. I…” But she could never have protected him, and it was never her place - would he not rather have died than hide behind her skirts for the rest of his life? He would, she knows, for he is brave and proud and strong like his uncle.

Was.

And he would not want to see her like this, crawling and cowering on the floor. She straightens until she is on her knees. The crown is heavy on her head.

"But I am proud of you", she says, her voice a whisper. "I always was. You were brave and strong, more so, I think, than you knew. Never doubt that I love you." She stands up, supporting herself on the lid of his tomb, and when she puts her hand on it again she is certain that he is not there. This is the resting place of his body, but a fire such as the one that burnt withing Kíli cannot be entombed. She puts the runestone on the lid. _Return to me._ "One day", she says, "we will meet again."

It is difficult to turn from the tomb, even more so because she faces another one behind her. Tears threaten her eyes again.

”Fíli… Fíli, my brave, brave child… My lion, my eldest…”

She runs her hands over the smooth surface of his tomb, her fingers trailing the runes that spell his name. She can see his golden mane before her, his bright eyes, the smile that would melt the strongest of steel. She must smile in return; it is impossible not to smile when she thinks of him. ”When I first held you in my arms I knew you were born to be a king”, she tells him. “I knew you would be greater than anyone else. But oh, I should have known Mahal would want you by his side. You grew up so brave and so selfless; you were too great for anything but Him. How I loved you. How I miss you.

Oh, Fíli”, she sighs, “I must ask of you again to take care of your brother. He is still younger than you. I do not think he will understand, not as easily as you do.

One day”, she says, “Mahal will call for me, and I will come to him, and you will stand by him when I meet him. This I know in my heart. We will meet again.”

And the she turns at last to the third tomb, standing alone on its platform, its gilded runes shimmering in the light of the torch. But the shimmer is too strong and too cold. When she puts her hand on the lid, she imagines that she can feel ice beneath her palm, and the silent pulse of the Arkenstone, its beauty now forever hidden. But it is not the Arkenstone she thinks of when her chest tightens and she is crying, again, leaning over the tomb as though to embrace it, embrace _him_. She is not a mother; she is a little girl, and her mother is sick with worry for her father, and only Thorin is there to comfort her; only he isn’t, not anymore.

”Oh, Thorin”, she whispers, ”how could you leave me? How could you take my sons away? You were my brother and I loved you. Why did you leave me here alone?” But the answer is right there under her palm. And when she remembers it she softens. He was confused, Dwalin said, and she believes that he was right. Thorin was confused his whole life. He thought he wanted Erebor when what he wanted was a home; thought he wanted revenge when what he wanted was to forget. “Oh, Thorin”, she says again. “You thought Erebor was the only thing that made you what you were. That without this silly mountain at the edge of the world you were nothing. And you thought the Arkenstone was yours, did you not, that it was made for you and you for it; for if Erebor was the same as you, then the Heart of the Mountain must be your heart too. But the Arkenstone is cold and hard and you were not. You never were.”

She leans over the tomb and tries to imagine his face beneath the lid, and in her mind he is young and at peace and his sleep is undisturbed, like she would sometimes find him when she was a child and had dreamt about the dragon and crept into his bed.

 _You’re not afraid, are you, Dís?_ he would ask when she woke her, and she would shake her head.

_I thought so. You’re a brave lass, aren’t you? My brave princess.  
_

_Can I sleep with you?_

_Just don’t kick me again,_ he’d say and let her curl up under the blanket and his body would be as hot as a furnace beside her. There in his arms she was never afraid.

”Oh, Thorin”, she whispers. ”I cannot hate you. You took my sons away, but you were my brother, and I love you. I always will.” Perhaps she would have done the same, if she had been him. Had she been older, had she been prouder, had she not had a husband to keep her bed warm and two boys to feed and shelter - then perhaps she would have thought that she was nothing without Erebor either. Then perhaps she would have thought her heart was stone too.

"And we will meet again."

She straightens. This is farewell, for the time being; she knows in her heart she will not return to these vaults until it is her time to be laid to rest here. And that will not happen yet. She has many things to do. Her people needs her. For so long they have been without home, guided by leaders too occupied with what they once had they do not know what they have now. She will be better than them. She will be stronger. She will be wiser.

She is a mother who has lost her sons, yes. She is a sister who has lost her brothers. She is a little girl, scared of fire. She is a master smith, her work a wonder. She is a widow. She is a woman.

And she _was_ a princess.

"The king is dead", she whispers to the empty vault, raising her crowned head. " _Long live the queen_.”

> _**The streams shall run in gladness,** _  
> _**The lakes shall shine and burn** _  
> _**All sorrow fail and sadness** _  
> _**At the Mountain-queen’s return!** _


End file.
